The Supreme Court on Friday refused to be diverted from its own order to hear the Ayodhya title appeals on a day to day basis, which includes hearing the case from Monday to Friday every week till it is over.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi was reacting to objections raised by senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, representing the Muslim parties, against the holding of the Ayodhya case on all the weekdays.
Usually, Mondays and Fridays are two days kept aside by the court to hear PIL (public interest litigation) and fresh cases. Regular or long haul cases like the Ayodhya are heard on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - which are called non-miscellaneous days in court parlance - in a given week.
However, Chief Justice Gogoi has broken the tradition and in his role as master of roster decided to hear the Ayodhya appeals through the week. PIL cases, which are mostly listed with him and the second most senior judge, Justice S.A. Bobde, may now be split among other judges.
The other three judges on the Constitution Bench, excluding the CJI and Justice Bobde, are Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S. Abdul Nazeer. They too were lead judges on other Benches of the court. Their inclusion in the Ayodhya Constitution Bench has seen the breaking up of their Benches. They would now exclusively focus on the Ayodhya case.
The vigour with which the Bench has scheduled the case and the day to day hearing of the appeals may owe to the fact that Chief Justice Gogoi is retiring in mid-November. The Bench would have to complete the hearing and pronounce the judgment by then.
Mr. Dhavan explained that he had raised the objection on Friday on behalf of lawyers of both sides of the case. He said the five-day schedule was making it difficult for lawyers to cope.
The hearing on Friday saw senior advocate K. Parasaran, for the Ayodhya deity, ask how Ramjanmabhumi, ‘where the spirit of Lord Ram pervades’, could be split into three.
Mr. Parasaran quoted mythological texts on the life of Lord Ram and his dynasty.
“Is there anyone from the Raghuvansh dynasty still around” Justice Bobde asked at one point in the hearing.
The hearing will resume on August 13.
